This report is focused around Lost and Found data using the intakes and outcomes data received for 2019-2021. Its goal is to reflect everything we could learn about L&F from the available data, make sure the numbers we see make sense, and highlight things that would be useful to show but some/all data required for them are missing.

Date range: 2020-07-20 to 2021-10-31

Report Structure

  1. KPIs: data points that indicate how good the shelter is doing on on L&F. They have numeric goals associated with them.
  2. Supporting data: data points that aren’t a goal themselves but serve as a proxy for improving a goal. For example, the method of RTH is not a performance indicator, but it helps identifying how RTHs take place. The number of strays found per ZIP code is not a metric to improve, but it shows where most strays are coming from to guide resource allocation.
  3. Data notes: the state of the data received from the shelter.
  4. Extra metrics: some ideas for additional L&F metrics and the data points they require.

Scroll down or use the table of contents on the left to navigate throughout the document. Most sections contain multiple tabs showing different facets of a data type. Most plots are interactive, meaning they include tooltips and allow hiding and showing parts and zooming in and out. If something went wrong, look for the house icon in the top right corner of each figure to reset.

KPIs

Yearly RTH Rates by Species

This section provides an overview of the RTH rate per year divided by species. Usually, we look at these by field and OTC pickups, but since these are not marked in the data we have, they were separated by the available intake subtypes – when we go over this we can modify as needed.

Overall RTH Rate

This table covers all strays and RTHs. RTH rates shown below are the number of strays with RTO outcome out of all strays.

When we go over this, let’s make sure we calculate the rate the same way you do, so we would want to make sure what we see makes sense. If these numbers are right, they are lower than the national and HASS averages, which are at 30% RTH rate (for dogs).

Species Year Strays RTH_Count RTH_Rate
Dog 2020 981 80 0.08
Dog 2021 3052 254 0.08
Other 2021 34 5 0.15

At Large RTH

This one only counts animals who came in as strays with “Running At Large” subtype, which is the most common one. Normally, we would also split these by RTH method between RTO in the field and in the shelter, but since it looks like these outcome subtypes have not been used often so far, here we will just look at the RTH rate as a whole.

The rate is similar to the overall rate.

Species Year Strays RTH_Count RTH_Rate
Dog 2020 528 46 0.09
Dog 2021 1909 168 0.09
Other 2021 1 1 1.00

Other RTH Rate

This shows the numbers for all animals NOT marked as running at large, which includes “Sick/Injured” and “Confined” as the two common values as well as a variety of other ones. Again, same as the overall rates.

Species Year Strays RTH_Count RTH_Rate
Dog 2020 453 34 0.08
Dog 2021 1143 86 0.08
Other 2021 33 4 0.12

RTH Over Time

These three time series show the RTH rate per month, to show whether there were times with particularly high or low rates as well as the overall trajectory.

Again, usually, we look at these by field and OTC pickups, but since these are not marked in the data we have, they were separated by the available intake subtypes – when we go over this we can modify as needed.

Overall RTH

The peak in July seems to be because there were much fewer intakes in that month than other ones (42). May 2021, however, was also a successful month while having standard intake volume.

At Latge RTH

This is the same figure, but only counting field strays (again, anything marked as something other than public drop off). Again, July 2020 is really high because of low intake, and the rest looks similar.

Others RTH

The peak of May 2021 is most noticeable here.

Stray Intakes

This section shows the number of stray intakes over time, as well as the breakdown of strays by field/shelter intake.

Stray Intakes by Month

Stray Intake Subtypes

Length of Stay Differences - RTH v. Other Outcomes

The average difference in length of stay (in days) between strays with RTH outcomes and all other strays is shown in the table below – roughly 10 days for dogs. That means that every successful RTH saves 10 days of care on average (for dogs) at Memphis Animal Services and field RTH would save an extra day or two on average for RTH from the shelter.

This could translate to pretty significant cost savings at scale – assuming a daily cost of care of 20$, if the RTH rate for dogs were 30% (reuniting an extra 400 dogs in 2021, for example), it would have saved Memphis Animal Services about $1.610^{5} in costs of care in 2021 (this is a fairly simple calculation, but it gets at the magnitude of the potential benefits).

Species Outcome Count Average_Length_Of_Stay
Dog Other Outcomes 3696 12.68
Dog RTO 334 2.34

Supporting Data

Stray Intake and RTH By Found ZIP - Dogs

The following maps show stray intake and RTH rate by ZIP codes to highlight geographical patterns. The first and second tab are similar to previous metrics; the third tab, RTH Gap, shows the number of strays who were not returned home per ZIP code.

Stray Intake

RTH Rate

RTH Gap

This combines the other two tabs to highlight where most additional RTH potential exists. As the RTH rate is also generally lower in the areas with most stray intake, they stand out even more in this figure.

Average LOS by Found Location (Dogs)

Is there a difference in the time it took owners to redeem their dogs based on where they were found? This might be better answered using the outcome (owner’s) ZIP code rather than the found one, but that is what we have on file for the time being. This map only shows dogs that were strays and had an RTH outcome.

The areas that have most strays also seem to stand out as having longer RTH time on average – 38127, 38109.

Data Notes

  1. 45 stray animals did not have a ZIP code listed (taken from the Jurisdiction field) and 31 had a ‘00000’ value. This is a relatively small fraction.

  2. 1100 out of 4160 strays did not have a found location.

  3. Only 53 animals had the found location of the shelter, which is pretty low - that value is not used as default, and 42 animals had a ‘Memphis, Tennesee’ which is also unusable.

  4. Intake subtype has values that contain information that could be captured elsewhere, such as condition (sick/injured). It might be useful to use this field to mark field/OTC intakes.

Extra Metrics

Other things we could show if we had the data for it:

  1. Exact distances traveled by lost dogs from home, if home address is collected for successful RTH.
  2. Prevalence of microchips across town (for example, are there areas from which more animals come in without chips?) and the RTH rates for animals found with/without chips, if there is a field indicating microchip scan results upon intake.
  3. Reclaim fees (could be a yes/no to track fee waiving).
  4. Number of public found reports and successful RTH by the public (if this data is accessible to the shelter).

Thanks for reading through, and we’re looking forward to talking through it and thinking about more ways to make this data useful for you.